Cyclone Shaheen: insurance compensation exceeds RO 62 million

Muscat (ONA): The weekly reports monitored by the Capital Market Authority (CMA) to follow up the insurance companies on settling the claims and paying the compensations after the cyclone “Shaheen” revealed that the volume of the claims stood at about RO 62.373 million so far through the registration of more than 9,800 claims distributed over a number of the Wilayats affected by the cyclone in the government’s of Muscat, North and South Al Batinah.

The data indicated that most of the claims submitted to insurance companies were accepted for all those affected by the cyclone “Shaheen” who hold insurance policies that cover the risks of natural disasters, whether to insure vehicles, property, transportation and other various insurance coverages.

The data also indicated that about RO 51.7 million are still under settlement, as reparation for these damages requires some time because they are houses, buildings and facilities. Insurance companies paid about RO 10.6 million to redress other damages, and the indicators of the size of the compensation is expected to rise and reach approximately RO 69 million by the end of the settlement of all claims related to the cyclone “Shaheen”.

As for the size of compensation for each insurance product, the data indicated that property insurance acquired the largest share, as its total compensation exceeded rO 45.3 million, which represents insurance of homes, buildings, facilities and other properties, followed by motor insurance with a total amount of RO 8.9 million. Then comes the engineering insurance with a share of about RO 7.5 million, which is the insurance that is concerned with securing industrial sites, facilities, devices and equipment. The rest is distributed to other types of insurance.

On the other hand, the data of the geographical distribution of insurance claims as a result of the cyclone “Shaheen” showed the direct effects in a number of wilayals of the governorates of North and South Al Batinah, as well as in the rest of the wilayals of the Sultanate in a cumulative way to determine the affected spatial dimension and its concentration in the wilayals and governorates. The largest number of claims of all kinds was reported in the Governorate of Muscat with 4,391 claims, followed by the Governorate of North Al Batinah, especially the Wilayat of A’Suwaiq, with a total of 2,632 claims, and the Wilayat of Al Khabourah, with 1,023 claims, while the rest of the claims were distributed among the various wilayals, such as Sohar, Saham, A’Rustaq, Al Musanah and Barka.

The total volume of claims paid by insurance companies since the beginning of 2021 until 16 December 2021 amounted to about RO 173.514 million. These figures reflect the role played by the insurance sector in managing risks at the level of individuals and institutions as one of the available means to enhance the principle of protection and social and economic security.